SOPA/PIPA, the controversial anti-piracy bill that would have allowed the U.S. government to monitor and remove “rogue” websites, was shelved in January after millions of Americans protested what essentially boiled down to online censorship.

But while this was taking place, SOPA author Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX, pictured above) was quietly pushing another, even more invasive online surveillance bill through Congress. Submitted in May 2011, HR 1981 (PDF) aka “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,” a proposed amendment to Chapter 18 USC 2703, shifts the focus from piracy to an irrefutably heinous crime: child pornography.

Law enforcement has identified data retention requirements for ISPs as the number one tool they need to identify and prosecute sexual predators on the Internet. Without this tool, sexual predators can surf the Internet preying on our children without fear of being caught.

To be fair, there are many good intentions in HR 1981. Some sections enhance the punishment for child exploitation. Others expand the protection of targeted minors.

But the part you freedom and Internet-loving advocates might care about is a new section requiring “electronic communication service or remote computing service” providers to store both temporary and static IP addresses for at least 18 months (currently ISPs are required to store this for three months). Law enforcers would then be able to subpoena companies for this information during investigations of unregistered sex offenders. Or as Kevin Fogarty at IT World put it, the bill essentially assumes 99.76 percent of Americans are guilty of child exploitation until proven innocent.

“Since it is empowering U.S. Marshals to investigate people who have not yet been convicted, under PCFIPA, the only thing required to get a valid subpoena to examine all the online activity 99.762 percent of the U.S. population, is an investigating officer willing to say the subpoena has something to do with investigation of online child porn.”

Even if many of you are willing to give up your anonymity for the sake of protecting children, you should be aware of two major implications. First of all, if your ISP is forced to store such data, hopefully with air-tight encryption, for 18 months rather than three, guess who’s going to pay for that expensive storage? You. Me. 90-year-old Me-ma.

Second of all, although IP addresses alone won’t say much more than your geolocation, an ISP can mine a lot more: browsing history, IMs, emails, social networking activity, etc. Another section in this bill promises not to bring any cause of action against an ISP disclosing information to a law enforcer.

The Future of HR 1981 and What You Can Do NOWAccording to The Next Web, the bill sailed through the House last year and is in the Union Calendar for “expedited consideration.”

OpenCongress and the Electronic Frontier Foundation provide easy links to contact your Congressman. As we saw with SOPA, when millions of Americans take a stand, it works.